Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

“I’m coming, too,” said Fern. “Not for the sex part. I have headphones.”

“I’m not,” said Megan. “No offense, Annie. I didn’t go to medical school and put my family in debt to run off and play medic for your weird fugitive adventures. I just want to survive whatever the hell is going on at Lowryland and make it home to my parents. You being a Price makes sense—sweet Medusa, does it ever—but it doesn’t exactly encourage me to stay around you. Even if you might be able to get me your brother’s autograph.”

“No offense taken,” I said. I stood. “I need weapons.”

“Be still my heart,” said Sam.

I wrinkled my nose at him as I walked out of the living room, into the hall, and past Cylia—still on her phone—to my bedroom.

When I’d fled from the burning carnival, I’d been as close to devoid of weaponry as any Price ever got. I’d been running virtually naked for the better part of a year. Back home, I would have had an arsenal at my disposal, all the knives, guns, and more esoteric weaponry that a girl could want. Having a family obsessed with combat techniques and staying alive, and a grandmother whose idea of an appropriate gift for a little girl was a box of caltrops, had done a lot to distort my idea of what “normal” levels of weaponry were.

Working at Lowryland meant no weapons, ever, because normal people don’t feel the need to hide twenty throwing knives in their clothing before they leave the house. Staff didn’t have to go through the metal detectors, but accidents happen—lord, do accidents happen—and I had no faith in my ability not to stab someone who got overly aggressive, which happened sometimes on days when the rides weren’t behaving, and the weather wasn’t behaving, and the tourists felt like they needed somebody to complain to. So I’d taken to keeping most of my paltry supply of weaponry in a box under the bed, where I could reach it if I needed it, but otherwise wouldn’t be tempted to start carrying it again.

I knelt. I pulled the box out. I looked at the heap of throwing knives—two full sets, one provided by the Covenant as part of my cover story for the carnival, one provided by the carnival once I had started working there—and other, slightly more makeshift weaponry, marbles and sharpened jacks and hand-braided wire garrotes. I took a deep breath. That didn’t seem like enough, so I took another, focusing on the homecoming those knives represented.

No more Timpani Brown, Covenant trainee. No more Melody West, ex-cheerleader and Lowryland employee. Just Antimony Price, Annie, the girl I had been born to be, the girl with fire in her fingers and no real sense of where she stood in the structure of a family that had an heir and a spare and her, youngest child who didn’t know who or what she should grow up to be.

Or maybe I wasn’t that Annie anymore either. I knew who I wanted to grow up to be. I was going to protect my family, and I was going to protect my friends, and I was going to learn how to use what I’d inherited from my grandfather, even if it meant joining my grandmother in her endless, quixotic quest to bring him home. I had a purpose now. Maybe it wasn’t the purpose I’d been expecting, but . . . it was mine. That made it more than good enough.

One by one, the knives vanished into my clothing, settling against my skin in the old, familiar patterns, made new again by time and distance from the last time I’d been allowed to strap them on. I wrapped the garrote around my wrist like a friendship bracelet and filled my pockets with problems for other people to deal with. When I was done, I was fifteen pounds heavier and felt a hundred pounds lighter, like I had borrowed Fern’s shifting relationship with density.

The last thing I did was pull the knife from under my pillow and slide it into my sock, and I was back. I was myself again.

The others turned to look at me when I returned to the living room. I held up my hands, turning them back and forth to show that they were empty.

“Nothing up my sleeves,” I said. A flick of my wrists and I was holding a pair of throwing knives, balanced between my thumbs and forefingers. We live in a world where magic is real and monsters lurk under more than a few beds, but there will always be a place for sleight of hand.

Sam grinned. “Does this mean you’re ready to get angry?”

“I guess it does,” I said. The knives disappeared back into my clothing. “I guess it’s time for all of us to get angry.”

The doorbell rang. Megan sat on the couch, picking up the towel she kept there and wrapping it around her head in a quick, practiced motion. The snakes, apparently conditioned to keep still in the dark, coiled and stopped moving, which was good, since otherwise the towel would have been pulsing like something out of a horror movie.

“Actually, it’s time for us to eat pizza,” said Cylia, walking calmly past me to the door. Sam got up and darted down the hall to my bedroom, out of sight.

I offered Fern a quick, tight smile, and went to the kitchen for plates.



* * *





The thing about riding gallantly into battle is that unless something is actively trying to kill you right now, it’s probably a good idea to eat first. We fell upon those two pizzas like we were starving—which, to be honest, several of us were. It had been a long time since our gingerbread at Lowryland, and baked goods do not a balanced diet make.

Megan, despite having mouse-eating snakes attached to her head, is a vegetarian; out of respect for her dietary needs, one of the pizzas was a virtual garden of plants that can be baked in an oven without turning completely disgusting. The other pizza was a meat-lover’s special. Megan ate the first, Fern ate the second, and I slapped two pieces together to form a perfectly balanced sandwich, a trick which Sam and Cylia quickly emulated.

(Cylia had also been smart enough to order several two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew to go with the food. Cylia was rapidly approaching the status of “my favorite.”)

For a little while, there was no room for conversation: there was only room for chewing, something that’s universal across all species, no matter what their diets entail. Megan stole bits of sausage from the meat-lover’s pizza and fed it to her hair while chewing on her own veggie-enriched slice; Sam double-fisted his pizza slice sandwiches, eating with a speed and efficiency which I frankly admired, even as I kept a hand free for my drink.

The pizzas were nearly gone when Sam paused, hiccupped, and turned human again. We all blinked at him.

“Huh,” said Cylia, who had only seen him in his fūri form. “You’re actually kinda cute.”

“Thanks?” said Sam.

“I think he’s cute both ways,” I said, earning myself a quick grin.

“Does this mean my luck’s back to normal?” asked Sam.

“Not quite,” said Cylia. “I know you’re going to glare at me, but if I were you, I’d avoid touching Annie for a while longer. Give it a day. Most of the luck I lathered onto you was good, because why the hell bother starting someone out with a big load of bad—seems to me you’ve got enough bad going already—and now you’re starting to pick up ambient luck, which is more mixed. Once your shell gets back to normal, you’ll be safe to do whatever you want.”

“By then, hopefully I won’t suck as hard,” I said.

Fern choked on her pizza.

I blinked at her before I felt myself turn bright red. “Oh, my God, you have a filthy mind,” I squawked, and threw a napkin at her.